Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr named new secretary of Iran's national security council

Veteran military commander and strategist Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr has been officially named the new Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Press TV reported. 

The announcement was made by Seyyed Mehdi Tabatabai, the deputy for communications and information at the Iranian President’s Office, in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday.

Zolqadr received this significant security appointment via a direct presidential decree and with the backing of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Syed Mojtaba Khamenei.

He takes over from Ali Larijani, who was assassinated in an Israeli-American terrorist attack last week. Larijani had held the position since August 2025.

The appointment of Zolqadr, a veteran commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and former senior security official, comes as the war imposed on Iran enters its fifth week.

Insiders have remarked that Baqer Zolqadr brings decades of military, security, and judicial experience to the post at a critical time.

Previously, he served as deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces for Basij affairs and held senior positions in the judiciary for nearly a decade.

Zolqadr’s academic background includes a bachelor’s degree in economics and a master’s degree in public administration, both earned from Tehran University before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He later obtained a doctorate in strategic management from the National Defense University.

His comprehensive military career includes two consecutive eight-year appointments following the Holy Defense war in the late 1980s. He first served as the head of the IRGC Joint Staff during Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presidency, and later as deputy commander-in-chief of the IRGC.